Maintaining a small business website costs a domain at about £10 to £15 a year and hosting at anywhere from free to about £30 a month, depending on how the site is built. Everything else is optional help. Among Surrey web designers who publish a price, care plans run from £15 to £345 a month (29 studios checked). Mine is £20 a month, and you can cancel any time.
How much you need depends mostly on what the site is built with. A simple static site needs very little. A WordPress site with lots of plugins needs regular updates to stay secure.
What does website maintenance include?
| Item | Do you need it? | Typical cost |
|---|---|---|
| Domain renewal | Yes | £10 to £15 a year. Set it to auto-renew |
| Hosting | Yes | Free for a simple static site on Cloudflare Pages. Up to about £30 a month for a WordPress site on decent hosting |
| SSL certificate (the padlock) | Yes | Usually free with the hosting now |
| Backups | Yes | Often included with hosting |
| Security and plugin updates | Yes for WordPress, barely for a static site | Your time, or part of a care plan |
| Email at your domain | If you want one | From £5.90 a user a month on Google Workspace plus VAT |
| Uptime monitoring | Nice to have | Free tools exist, such as UptimeRobot |
| Content changes | When your business changes | Your time, an editing area, or paid help |
What do providers charge?
Using the published prices of Surrey web designers I checked on 26 September 2026:
- Hosting only. £15 to £25 a month where published.
- Care plans with some support time. From £50 a month up to £345 a month for four hours of work and same-day starts.
- Pay as you go. One studio charges £125 an hour.
- Pay-monthly websites, where the site, hosting and support come as one fee. £25 to £85 a month, and two of the three had 12-month minimum terms.
Most of the 29 studios didn't publish maintenance prices at all, so ask before you commit.
Where do people waste money on maintenance?
Paying for things that should be free. SSL certificates, basic DNS changes and email forwarding cost providers next to nothing. They shouldn't be line items.
Paying for reports instead of work. A monthly PDF of your traffic isn't maintenance. Google Search Console shows you the same thing for free.
Paying for unused hours. Plans with "2 hours of changes a month" that don't roll over cost you money in quiet months.
Long minimum terms. Rolling monthly arrangements exist. Be wary of anyone who needs a year's commitment before starting.
Paying for 24/7 support you don't need. Unless your site takes money every hour, next working day is fine.
How can I keep maintenance costs down?
Choose a simpler build. Static sites have no plugins, no database and nothing for hackers to exploit in the same way as an out-of-date WordPress install. That's why my £300 sites are static and cost nothing to host in your own account.
Keep hosting in your name. Then you can see what it costs and aren't paying a markup bundled into a care plan. Note that some free hosting tiers are for personal projects only. Vercel's free Hobby plan, for example, is non-commercial, so a business site belongs on a plan that allows commercial use.
Get an editing area if you change things weekly. Then you're not paying someone for every price change. My £750 site has one.
Get a clear agreement. What's included, what costs extra and how to cancel.
What does a small business realistically need?
| Simple static site | WordPress site | |
|---|---|---|
| Domain | £10 to £15 a year | £10 to £15 a year |
| Hosting | Free | About £5 to £30 a month |
| Updates | Almost none | Monthly plugin and core updates |
| Changes | Your editing area, or paid help | Your dashboard, or paid help |
| Realistic yearly cost | £10 to £15, plus optional help | £70 to £375, plus optional help |
If you want someone to handle changes, updates and backups on a site I built, that's £20 a month, and you can cancel any time. If you're paying a lot more than the figures above and nothing much happens each month, it's worth asking what you're paying for.
For the wider picture, see how much a website costs in the UK. If you're not sure what your current set-up costs you, send it for a free website check.
Questions
- How much should I pay for website maintenance each month?
- For a simple small business site, the essentials are a domain (about £10 to £15 a year) and hosting (free to about £30 a month). Paid help with changes and updates is optional. Surrey studios that publish care plans charge £15 to £345 a month. Mine is £20.
- Do static websites need maintenance?
- Very little. A static site has no plugins or database to update, so the main jobs are renewing the domain, keeping a backup and making content changes when your business changes.
- Is a 12-month maintenance contract normal?
- Some providers ask for one, but rolling monthly arrangements you can cancel are common. Read the minimum term before you sign.
Federica helps new businesses look established, get found and get enquiries, with branding and websites, from Woking, Surrey. She studied engineering at the University of Manchester and was a Lead UX Engineer at IBM before starting Made by Federica. More about her
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